Reflections on practical approaches to involving children and young people in the data analysis process

This article reflects on key methodological issues emerging from children and young people's involvement in data analysis processes. We outline a pragmatic framework illustrating different approaches to engaging children, using two case studies of children's experiences of participating in data analysis. The article highlights methods of engagement and important issues such as the balance of power between adults and children, training, support, ethical considerations, time and resources. We argue that involving children in data analysis processes can have several benefits, including enabling a greater understanding of children's perspectives and helping to prioritise children's agendas in policy and practice. (C) 2007 The Author(s). Journal compilation (C) 2007 National Children's Bureau.

Mediterranean ecosystems: problems and tools for conservation

Mediterranean ecosystems rival tropical ecosystems in terms of plant biodiversity. The Mediterranean Basin (MB) itself hosts 25 000 plant species, half of which are endemic. This rich biodiversity and the complex biogeographical and political issues make conservation a difficult task in the region. Species, habitat, ecosystem and landscape approaches have been used to identify conservation targets at various scales: ie, European, national, regional and local. Conservation decisions require adequate information at the species, community and habitat level. Nevertheless and despite recent improvements/efforts, this information is still incomplete, fragmented and varies from one country to another. This paper reviews the biogeographic data, the problems arising from current conservation efforts and methods for the conservation assessment and prioritization using GIS. GIS has an important role to play for managing spatial and attribute information on the ecosystems of the MB and to facilitate interactions with existing databases. Where limited information is available it can be used for prediction when directly or indirectly linked to externally built models. As well as being a predictive tool today GIS incorporate spatial techniques which can improve the level of information such as fuzzy logic, geostatistics, or provide insight about landscape changes such as 3D visualization. Where there are limited resources it can assist with identifying sites of conservation priority or the resolution of environmental conflicts (scenario building). Although not a panacea, GIS is an invaluable tool for improving the understanding of Mediterranean ecosystems and their dynamics and for practical management in a region that is under increasing pressure from human impact.

A practical approach to goal modelling for time-constrained projects

Goal modelling is a well known rigorous method for analysing problem rationale and developing requirements. Under the pressures typical of time-constrained projects its benefits are not accessible. This is because of the effort and time needed to create the graph and because reading the results can be difficult owing to the effects of crosscutting concerns. Here we introduce an adaptation of KAOS to meet the needs of rapid turn around and clarity. The main aim is to help the stakeholders gain an insight into the larger issues that might be overlooked if they make a premature start into implementation. The method emphasises the use of obstacles, accepts under-refined goals and has new methods for managing crosscutting concerns and strategic decision making. It is expected to be of value to agile as well as traditional processes.

Mediterranean ecosystems: problems and tools for conservation

Mediterranean ecosystems rival tropical ecosystems in terms of plant biodiversity. The Mediterranean Basin (MB) itself hosts 25 000 plant species, half of which are endemic. This rich biodiversity and the complex biogeographical and political issues make conservation a difficult task in the region. Species, habitat, ecosystem and landscape approaches have been used to identify conservation targets at various scales: ie, European, national, regional and local. Conservation decisions require adequate information at the species, community and habitat level. Nevertheless and despite recent improvements/efforts, this information is still incomplete, fragmented and varies from one country to another. This paper reviews the biogeographic data, the problems arising from current conservation efforts and methods for the conservation assessment and prioritization using GIS. GIS has an important role to play for managing spatial and attribute information on the ecosystems of the MB and to facilitate interactions with existing databases. Where limited information is available it can be used for prediction when directly or indirectly linked to externally built models. As well as being a predictive tool today GIS incorporate spatial techniques which can improve the level of information such as fuzzy logic, geostatistics, or provide insight about landscape changes such as 3D visualization. Where there are limited resources it can assist with identifying sites of conservation priority or the resolution of environmental conflicts (scenario building). Although not a panacea, GIS is an invaluable tool for improving the understanding of Mediterranean ecosystems and their dynamics and for practical management in a region that is under increasing pressure from human impact.

A practical comparison of group-sequential and adaptive designs

Sequential methods provide a formal framework by which clinical trial data can be monitored as they accumulate. The results from interim analyses can be used either to modify the design of the remainder of the trial or to stop the trial as soon as sufficient evidence of either the presence or absence of a treatment effect is available. The circumstances under which the trial will be stopped with a claim of superiority for the experimental treatment, must, however, be determined in advance so as to control the overall type I error rate. One approach to calculating the stopping rule is the group-sequential method. A relatively recent alternative to group-sequential approaches is the adaptive design method. This latter approach provides considerable flexibility in changes to the design of a clinical trial at an interim point. However, a criticism is that the method by which evidence from different parts of the trial is combined means that a final comparison of treatments is not based on a sufficient statistic for the treatment difference, suggesting that the method may lack power. The aim of this paper is to compare two adaptive design approaches with the group-sequential approach. We first compare the form of the stopping boundaries obtained using the different methods. We then focus on a comparison of the power of the different trials when they are designed so as to be as similar as possible. We conclude that all methods acceptably control type I error rate and power when the sample size is modified based on a variance estimate, provided no interim analysis is so small that the asymptotic properties of the test statistic no longer hold. In the latter case, the group-sequential approach is to be preferred. Provided that asymptotic assumptions hold, the adaptive design approaches control the type I error rate even if the sample size is adjusted on the basis of an estimate of the treatment effect, showing that the adaptive designs allow more modifications than the group-sequential method.